On August 12th, County
Manager, Terry Schutten and the Budget ManagementTeam presented an overview of the
1998 proposed budget of $409,801,041 to the County Board. This was the start of the
"budget season". On October 21st each county department and each
major division of these departments started presenting to the Board their line by line
budget requests. By law, final adoption will take place between December 10th
and 28th. December 9th is the Joint Public Truth in Taxation
Meeting @ Arlington High and November 24 @ Little Canada City Hall.

Early on Commissioner Janice
Rettman requested that budget discussions be made as public as possible: "The
public has the right to know where each and every dollar comes from, what goods and
services they purchase and what the quality of those goods and services are. A budget of
more than Four Hundred Million dollars must be fully justified, and the public arena is
where it should be scrutinized and discussed." She further went on to say that
"I realize that I am in many ways a detail person and that not everyone is like me;
but, with my twelve years experience on the City Council and as the Budget Chair, I know
that there are many members of the public that want to know everything about their tax
dollar: There are some citizenry, and I hope Board members, that see ways to reduce the
tax levy (save dollars); so, being in the public eye is the place for full discussion and
disclosure."

On September 9th, Janice
introduced a plan to use Interest Earning dollars already received in 1997 to reduce the
tax levy by 2.7 million dollars which would reduce to ZERO the tax levy. The plan was
not accepted at the time; however, it was not ruled out as a possibility. Tax levy
reduction is still a viable option for reducing cost. Janice assured the Board that she
would continue to pursue reducing the tax levy to Zero if possible.

Along with scrutinizing the
Budget, Janice is still encouraging the Board to cable-televise the budget review meetings
so that the public has the opportunity to critique.